


The Boy Who Wasn't

by Nel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: "Im not bitter" South Italy said bitterly with a bitter expression: the fanfic, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Bad Touch Trio is now the Pureblood Heirs Trio, Boy Who Lived!Feli, Boy Who Was Also There I Guess!Lovino, Copious use of Italian, Dick-punching and other extreme sports, M/M, Magic, Manon continues to be better than everyone else, Pickpockets, Slowly adding characters/pairings as they pop up!, South Italy has dimples and if you disagree you are wrong, South Italy is FULL of undiagnosed trauma and is F I N E, Thestrals, Trauma, Tsundere South Italy (Hetalia), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, We stan Romano in this house
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2020-09-26 19:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nel/pseuds/Nel
Summary: Lovino had always sarcastically referred to himself as ‘the boy who wasn’t’  Feliciano was the boy who was responsible for stopping a dictator, who was famous and adored, who was magically capable, and Lovino, well...wasn’t. Harry Potter AU.The AU that nobody asked for except for me, and that I then provided for myself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, I haven't written fanfiction in a hot minute and Hetalia in literal years, what is my life.  
Neither beta'd nor brit-picked.  
Ancient Rome: Romulus

There was a very long time when they weren't sure he was going to get a letter at all.

Lovino asserted whenever it was brought up that he did not care, and that wizards were fucking stupid anyway, and that Hogwarts was probably a dirty shithole, and then he went upstairs and locked himself in the closet while his grandfather and Feliciano pretended they couldn't hear him sobbing through the paper-thin walls.

The last time his grandfather tried to give him a heart-to-heart about how important and loved he was, Lovino punched him in the dick so hard he was incapacitated on the floor for a good fifteen minutes. The last time Feliciano tried, he ended up sympathy-crying for an hour and massively dehydrating himself. Eventually, Romulus decided to just buy him a Kneazle and hope that some degree of animal instinct would be able to comfort his grandson.

Thus, at seven years old, Lovino Vargas went to Diagon Alley for the first time.

They had to take the knight bus, because side-along apparition always upset Lovino’s stomach. Romulus brought a caprese salad in a small tupperware, and tiny fingers picked out the tomatoes as the bus ricocheted around corners, ignoring traffic lights and kicking up tiny pebbles that dinged against the hubcaps of other cars.

“The mozzarella too, Lovino. You can’t only eat the tomatoes.”

“_Vai a morire ammazzato_.” Romulus’s eyebrows furrowed. Where the hell did Lovi pick that kind of language up from? He certainly didn’t talk like that, and they didn’t know any other Italian families in Britain.

“Lovino,” Romulus said sternly, and watched his grandson squirm in his seat. “I will take you home.” 

Hazel eyes beseeched him as his head whipped around. “Nonno!”

“The mozzarella.” Reluctantly, sullenly, sticky fingers picked up the white chunks of cheese. The secretly-amused grandfather watched Lovino lick every trace of oil and tomato juice off before taking a mouse-sized bite of the cheese.

Better than nothing.

They dismounted the Knight Bus on the outskirts of London, and Lovino promptly displayed both hands, palm-up. A simple cleaning charm took care of any residual stickiness, and then the two were off.

That morning, Lovino had insisted on dressing himself, and had chosen the neatly-pressed shirt and pants that were usually set aside for weekend mass, as well as his best black shoes. Evidently this added a degree of smug self-assurance that was typically hard to find in Lovino’s skulking slouch, and Romulus took notice of his grandson’s unusually heavy footfalls as he clearly tried to give his steps some gravitas.

“I want to open the wall,” he announced self-importantly, tilting his pointed chin to defiantly stare down his Nonno.

Romulus’s lips twisted into a half-smile. There was something undeniably cute about his tiny dictator. “You don’t have a wand, _passerotto_.”

“Give me yours,” he demanded.

Normally, Romulus would say no. Neither of his grandchildren were particularly good at keeping things unbroken. Lovino’s chorea hadn’t been much of a problem once they had gotten him to drink a daily potion, but it seemed that the boy was naturally clumsy as well. The odds of getting his wand back in one piece were...admittedly small.

But today was about Lovino. Feliciano had never been permitted to hold Romulus’s wand, and he knew that letting the older boy do so would speak louder to his importance than anything that could be said. So, he swallowed the dismissal and instead said, “when we get closer, I will. Be careful with it, mm?”

Lovino’s whole face lit up, hazel eyes sparkling, dimples pressing into his face, fingers gripping his grandfather’s pants. “You mean it, Nonno? I can? Just me?”

“Just you,” he confirmed, almost wanting to cry. How long it had been since he’d seen that smile…

His spirits much higher, Lovino babbled to his grandfather nearly without breathing as they made their way to the Leaky Cauldron. 

“Nonno, I want to go to Fortiscue’s first! And then I want to go to the bookshop, and I want to look at the brooms, and I want to see the wand man, the really old one, and I want--”

“Hush, _piccolo_,” his grandfather laughed. “We’ll go wherever you like.”

“Then Fortiscue’s.”

“Alright. And what would you like there?”

“I want vanilla ice cream.” No surprise--that was the only flavor Lovino would eat. “And I want a lemon ice cream. So--so I can take it home, and eat it later.” Romulus bit back a smile. Lovino hated fruit flavors--unlike Feliciano, who loved them. It would be much easier if Lovino were able to be honest with his feelings, but the therapist had insisted that they not push, and so he simply said, “Then we should go at the end of the day, so it won’t melt on the way home.”

“Tch, fine,” Lovino said with no real bite. “Is that it? The Leaking Place?”

“The Leaky Cauldron. Yes, this is it. Hand in mine, please.”

Making a great show of grumbling, Lovino let his grandfather take his hand, and they went into the Leaky Cauldron together.

It was still early in the morning, and the Leaky Cauldron was largely unpopulated. A few wizards quietly sipped at coffee here and there, but there were only a handful of people around, which was how Romulus had wanted it. The eyes of strangers flickered to him as he walked by--their expressions grew shocked and their eyes darted excitedly to Lovino, only to take him in properly and look away dismissively. Red with a combination of anger and shame, Lovino stuck two fingers up at them.

“Lovino,” Romulus murmured.

“They’re unhappy,” Lovino said loudly, glaring around at everyone in the shop, daring them to meet his eyes. “They wanted Feliciano and instead they got me, and so they’re unhappy.”

“Don’t be silly, _passerotto_. Come. The bricks are in the back. Or should I open the wall for you?”

Lovino looked at him for a moment, eyes flickering with something like betrayal, before he pushed his way past his grandfather and out the back of the pub. Romulus frowned softly. His little sparrow really was too perceptive for his own good. A Ravenclaw or a Slytherin for sure--that is, if the whispers of ‘squib’ in the London parlors weren’t on the mark. 

The older man stood behind the boy in the tiny courtyard out back. When he was in a strop, Lovino preferred to wait to be spoken to, and so Romulus was content to loiter, hands in his pockets. Eventually the boy turned, lips set in a scowl somehow even more vicious than ever. “You never stick up for me.”

Surprise arched across Romulus’s face. “Against them? _Tesoro_, they were just looking. Surely you wouldn’t like me to pick fights with every person who looks at you.”

The set of Lovino’s jaw implied that, actually, that was what he wanted, but all he said was, “your wand.”

Normally it was a bad idea to give a wand to a child when they were emotionally volatile. It could cause problems of the explosive and dramatic variety. But any peek of accidental magic, even wildly destructive magic, would have been a relief for Romulus, to show that despite what had happened, his grandson wasn’t broken. Alas, when he handed over the wand, not a single spark went off between his strong fingers and his little one’s little ones. 

Now it was Romulus trying not to gaze at Lovino with bald-faced disappointment.

Oblivious to this, the wand-wielding boy gave the stick a few dramatic flourishes and, to protect his spirits, Rome wiggled his fingers in a little wandless charm to open the bricks right when his piccolo tapped them properly.

“I did it!” He shrieked in delight, hurling himself into his grandfather’s arms. His Nonno peppered his face in kisses. 

“So you did.” The lie tasted sweet, almost like caramel, and went down easily. “Now let’s go get you a pet, my darling.”

The hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley was good for Lovino and served to help him forget how angry he was. There was a frenzied energy largely absent in the Italian wizard community, and Romulus privately thought that little head might unscrew if he kept whipping it about to see so many things. This entire trip had been built off the condition that Lovino hold Romulus’s hand the entire time and though he often forgot and tried to dash off to look at something that caught his fancy, his grandfather was able to recapture his wrist and force them to head over at a more sedate pace. But Lovino loved the vibrancy, loved looking in the shop windows, eagerly bounced over to the bookstore and bragged about his (actually rather mediocre) reading prowess. The curious-turned-pitying expressions were lost in a sea of faces, and occasionally a shop vendor would venture out of their store to actively sell their wares. Rome himself was jokingly turning off the advances of one of the older women working at Madame Rosmerta’s when Lovino yanked on his robes for attention.

“Nonno! Nonno, look at that!”

Romulus froze. A heartbeat. Two. Three.

Lovino was oblivious to the sudden stiffness of the hand holding his, and simply pulled harder. “Nonno, that’s amazing! What is that? It’s so big and scary!”  
The crowd itself had gone silent. So many faces, turned towards Lovino. The only person who didn’t was the animal’s handler, still dutifully tugging the harness through the streets, hugging the sides so business could go on as usual.

“Lovino,” his grandfather tried, his throat clenching.

“I want that! Nonno, buy me one of those!”

But there was nothing where Lovino’s finger was pointing. Just a harness--a horse’s harness, floating midair where his grandson’s tiny finger followed like an accusation, and each heartbeat was painful, the valves slotting into place like iron bars as it struggled to pump blood into a body that did not want it.

A thestral. Lovino could see thestrals.

_The door was open._

_The door was open, and Chiara was a scatterbrain, just like he was sometimes, so she might have left it unlocked, but Gabriele had a good head on his shoulders, never let her forget, and anyway, why would it be open?_

_Why the fuck was the door open._

_Something was slowly seeping across the floor, and it looked like blood, just for a second, but it was water, with clumps of sod, come from the plant, likely, the potted one that Gabriele had been trying to help Lovino grow crocuses in, the pot was broken and the water was oozing out but why was the pot broken, why was it so silent in the house, the door was open and the flower pot was broken, and why the **fuck**-_

_Romulus heard a small, thin wail and, before he even realized, started to run._

“Nonno! You aren’t listening to me! Stop staring already, _stronzo_! I want you to--”

“Lovino,” Romulus said in a shaking voice he had never heard before. “For once, please, shut up.”

In slow motion, Romulus watched in horror as his grandson’s heart trembled, cracked, shattered.

“Hold on--Lovino, wait--” Romulus tried, but Lovino ripped his hand from his Nonno’s grip and disappeared alone down a narrow alley.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: changed Turkey’s name to his ‘canon’ one which I thought was fanon for an overly complicated reason I’m too lazy to describe.
> 
> Trigger warning: Depiction of dissociation (see end note for details)

Diagon alley is at its busiest when the sun is directly overhead. Positions of the celestial bodies matter for rituals and brewing and it’s the nature of rubber-neckers to stop and gawk at shop windows. One woman with loosely curled hair hesitates in just such a manner, only for a young boy to barrel into her.

“Excuse me,” she huffs, and the boy turns wide, sweet eyes on her.

“I-I’m so sorry,” he says timidly and she sighs, thawing despite herself.

“Don’t let it happen again,” she orders, and doesn’t bother to watch as he scampers around the corner.

The second he’s out of sight, Lovino holds up a handful of galleons he’d swiped from her pockets and counts them, muttering, “bitch.”

The first time he had run through the alleys back here, it hadn’t taken long for Romulus to find him, but he’d come out...different. Lovino had stopped opening up to his therapist, preferring instead to stare her down as she tentatively tried to prod around the bruised parts of his psyche. Sessions with Feliciano, sessions with Romulus, sessions with both, sessions with neither--Lovino was done, done, done. His transformation from wounded child to emotionally detached preteen was…

Honestly, the biggest fucking relief.

“Finally,” he breathes to himself, counting and counting the coins again just to be sure that he miraculously made the cash before the deadline. Finally enough. Lovino has been picking coins from pockets two at a time since that day, sneaking away through Nonno’s Floo network and slumming around Knockturn Alley, keeping his stash hidden in trash cans around the city. 

Today is the day. It’s just before his fourteenth birthday and he’s finally getting a Thestral foal.

“Sadik!” Lovino shouts, pounding his fist on the rickety house that he knows the Turkish man lives in. “Sadik, open your fucking door! _Cornuto_! _Figlio di puttana_!!”

“I don’t speak Italian,” a dry voice notes from an upstairs window, “but something tells me that wasn’t ‘Hello, it is I. Please attend to my person.’"

Lovino turns his glare up a few floors, where a tanned boy with a mask Juliettes on the window sill like some kind of douchey philosopher who read the Phantom of the Opera and thought that covering _both eyes_ would make him look like _doubly a sexual predator_.

Lovino hates him, passionately and often, and since hate is the only emotion he can regularly access, he’s very good at it. Hating Sadik is one of his favorite hobbies, and on his birthday, why not indulge himself?

“Bring my horse!” he bellows, kicking his stupid door. Behind the mask, Sadik winces, and Lovino kicks it twice more for good measure.

“_Stupefy_,” Sadik snarls, and Lovino nimbly leaps out of the way, directly into a trash can. Not for the first time, he wishes he could just cast a fucking shield or something, that he could go to Hogwarts and not his awful muggle school, that he was _Feliciano_\--

His horse. He’s here for his horse.

The Adnan house is thin and tall, sandwiched between other buildings and made of dark grey bricks. On the street level is a shopfront advertising ‘Adnan’s Exotic Animals’ in carefully lettered silver paint, and from the second floor up are the family’s lodgings, with a rickety fire escape stretching between them. Lovino knows that if he takes a running jump and goes off the trash cans, he can just manage to grab the bottom of the ladder and haul himself up on the fire escape. He knows that Sadik knows it, too.

“I’ll come up,” he warns.

With an eight-second sigh, Sadik ducks back in and slams the window down. He might have been rolling his eyes. Why the fuck does he even wear that mask? Lovino knows he was in the war or whatever, and he probably has scars from it. But who cares? Pretty much everyone was in the war, if they’re Sadik’s age. If they have a problem with his face being screwed up, they really need to get over themselves.

Apparently Lovino isn’t a valued customer, because Sadik takes his sweet fucking time getting downstairs. Eventually, though, the front door opens and the pleasant smell of incense wafts out. “Get in, impertinent brat.”

Lovino feels a cheeky grin trying to curl at his lips but he ruthlessly squashes it--even so, there’s probably a lightness to his expression that few other people are allowed to see. “If you insist,” he drawls, and goes into the store.

Adnan’s Exotic Animals is dimly lit and tiny. There are a few stools lined up against the far wall, but Lovino’s never seen anyone sitting in them. The walls are papered in faded posters advertising things in another language—he’d asked Sadik once, only to be told that the model waving at them with the coy grin was Sadik’s father—and there’s an umbrella stand in the corner holding an array of swords.

The shop is a relic of time, but it’s unapologetic about its age. A memorial to Sadik father, maybe, as another casualty of war.

There’s a counter with an old Muggle cash register, but in the display case are the wares themselves, and most attention tends to be drawn there.

The Adnan family is the only one in Diagon Alley who stores their wares outside London. It seems so obvious when you think about it, that having a portkey to take you offsite opens up all sorts of possibilities in what sorts of things you can sell, but everyone else prefers to pack all their crap into practically no space. Instead of forcing animals into city habitats, the Adnans—or rather, Sadik—keep meticulously hand-painted figurines on the shelves of the display case. Lovino has spent many an hour there, watching the wyvern stalk across the shelf, laughing as the hippogriff picks fights with the unicorn. As always, though, his eye stalls on the Thestral, pawing idly at the ground, shaking itself, stretching its frail-looking skeletal wings.

Sadik watches him watching it and chuckles. “Today’s the day, eh?”

“Yes,” Lovino says breathlessly, unable to tear his eyes away from the miniature horse. He shoves his bag of galleons into the shopkeep’s hand, is vaguely aware of the low voice in the background, counting, recounting, re-recounting.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he whistles. “You did it.”

“Of course,” he dismisses irritably. “Wouldn’t’ve shown up if I didn’t.”

“How did such a wee thing manage to get so much money?”

‘Literal years of stealing,’ his brain provides. His mouth instead supplies the much more palatable answer of “magical wizard shit.”

“”That’s a word for it,” Sadik says dryly, but the two seem to have settled on the unspoken agreement to keep the felonious elephant in the room to its own devices. “Alright. Let me get the portkey and I’ll come back with your girl.”

Lovino is left alone in the shop, which means alone with his thoughts. Generally, that’s not a great place for him to be, especially today. It’s Feliciano and his birthday in a few days--by which he means, Feliciano’s birthday and also incidentally the day that Lovino had been pushed out a few years prior. Romulus used to throw them a combination party and put serious effort into keeping the festivities balanced between each sibling, but after years of hostile rebuffing, Lovino is now kept blissfully out of the birthday nonsense, and the day has over time turned into the Feliciano-worshipping three-ring-shitshow that it was likely intended to be since the creation of the fucking cosmos. But this year is special--the year that Feliciano turns 11, and therefore the year that Feliciano gets his fancy letter to the posh school of privledged dillholes that Lovino wasn’t good enough to scrape by an invitation for. There is no question that Feliciano is getting an invitation, just like there had been no question that Lovino was not getting one. The only question is how much muggle screamo Lovino will have to blast out of his speakers to pretend like all this Hogwarts bullshit is some asbestos-induced hallucination. 

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t fucking care.

Under his breath, Lovino murmurs it again and again--’I don’t care, I don’t care’--and shoves that bitter part of him as far down as it will go, into the dregs of his heart. Thankfully, as he does so, that familiar numbness comes up to swallow him. He feels almost detached from his own body, like nothing can hurt him, and he’s just a bystander floating idly around as terrible things happen to this Italian kid he happens to be watching in the world’s most boring movie. It’s hard to remember what happens when he’s like this--but honestly, that’s more of a plus than a drawback, and Lovino lets his awareness float further and further away as his surroundings feel more and more dreamlike.

“Here,” Sadik interrupts, and Lovino blinks at him with a slow, lazy detachment. And then he really focuses, fights against that fuzziness, because she’s _there_.

It’s his girl.

The Thestral foal is about the size he’d expected. It means she fits comfortably in the shop, but obviously that she needs space to walk around, so it isn’t a long-term option for her. She’s sleek and dark, but her eyes are burning coals in her gaunt face.

Lovino opens his mouth. Closes it, opens it. A tear trickles from his eye, but it feels like it’s on somebody else’s face.

“Cripes, kid, are you alright?”

After a few more fish impressions, Lovino grates out words. “She’s here,” he says finally.

Sadik’s gaze softens, and he rests a hand on Lovino’s shaking shoulders. “She’s beautiful, yeah? Tame as can be, and such an elegant little lady.” As if to supplement this, the horse sneezes daintily.

“I love her,” Lovino chokes out, reaching for her muzzle with one hand, gently pressing two fingertips to her nose. She nuzzles back and he flinches, feeling--something in his chest. It’s white hot and sharp, a savage sort of joy, rumbling with the power of an earthquake, fierce and bright and unapologetic, and a delighted beam stretches across his face--

The windows _explode_.

Sadik roars out a curse and tackles Lovino to the ground, shielding him with his own much larger body as the Thestral rears in obvious alarm. Lovino’s head throbs dizzily as he tries to understand what on earth happened, as he waits for some terrorist to kick down the door.

It’s silent. Calm, almost.

Slowly, Sadik pulls himself off Lovino, keeping his stance alert, but as a threat continues to not materialize, his posture goes from soldier-like to slouched. His masked gaze seems to flit around the room still, but distractedly, and it always stops on Lovino again.

“Can I _help_ you, fuckface?” Lovino mutters, more shaken than he’d like to admit.

“...No,” Sadik says eventually. “Go home, brat. Bring your girl with you. And, whatever you do, stay calm.”

Something in the way he says that makes Lovino feel...strange. But that strangeness manifests as an aggressive avoidance. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. “Fine,” he mutters, sullenly, gratefully. He lifts one hand to rub his girl’s muzzle and nearly runs in his haste to get her out of the store.

The plan to obtain and rear his own Thestral has been in the works for years now, and it’s all relied on one constant. It had been a gamble, and a barely-remembered one, but as Lovi’s girl presses to his side, he can’t help but see how many people slide around him, too preoccupied to think too much about bumping into something not there, eyes never stopping for a second.

As he thought, it’s hard to protest the adoption of a pet you don’t even know is there.

He leads her through the Floo that Flourish and Blotts owner lets him use (and that’s a struggle and a half, to lead her through the stacks of books without upsetting them, alerting people to what he’s doing, or accidentally harming her), but once they’re inside Nonno’s flat, Lovi brings her to his room. She paces around, tossing her mane and giving everything a thorough examination.

Lovino is so, so in love.

That night, Nonno cooks spaghetti. Feliciano gets sauce all over his upper lip, and he and Nonno laugh like their typical buffoon selves. That night, Feliciano is shot down for yet another goodnight hug, and cries to Nonno about it even though he’s already too goddamn old for that sort of snivelling. Lovi’s forced to make his two-thousandth half-arsed apology that even Feliciano doesn't believe, and he spends his night sleeping curled up on the floor with his baby girl. 

That morning, Lovino is woken from his spot by the screeching of an agitated owl pressing its beak into the doorbell. That morning, Feliciano’s Hogwarts letter is dropped off with surprisingly little fanfare.

That morning, three years late, Lovino’s is, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for those who commented! I'm pretty unused to writing chaptered fics at the moment so your comments are the best way to keep me writing!
> 
> Trigger description: When Sadik leaves him alone, Lovino has a brief scene where he dissociates as an unhealthy coping mechanism. The word 'dissociation' isn't used, but the feelings of detachment are described.
> 
> Italian:  
Cornuto: Cuckold  
Figlio di puttana: Son of a bitch


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lovino is super excited to go to Hogwarts!
> 
> Just kidding, he freaks out.

Lovino had spent the week leading up to his eleventh birthday in a distracted haze, forgetting to wash his plate after dinner and lying awake late into the night. Nonno had been evasive when he first asked about his Hogwarts letter, and remained so beyond insisting that Lovino not get _too_ disappointed if he wasn’t able to go and asserting that it really didn’t matter how much magic a person could do. There were no high expectations on a letter coming, but that little whisper in the back of his mind coaxed him with a tempting _what if? _

What if he had a secret potential that even Nonno didn’t know about? What if he was just as special as Feliciano was, or maybe even _more_ special? What if everyone around him had written him off his whole life, only to realize that Lovino was just as good as the rest of them--just as clever, just as talented, just as deserving. 

During that week, before the eventual climax of soul-rending disappointment, Lovino sat and dreamed about the first thing he would do if--_if_\--his letter came, too.

His imagined responses always shifted flavors depending on the day, but all were pretty far from what actually happens, which is this:

Lovino Vargas, at thirteen years old, throws the unholiest tantrum known to man.

It’s slow, at first, a steady inhale of the tide to some dark, pulsing thing off the coast. It’s easy for Lovino to drift. The words on the letter roll through his brain and off to wherever useless words go, and he stares at the book list for an unreasonably long time, taking in none of it. He feels emotion trying to crescendo into something, rumbling off in the distance as the sand is sucked hungrily into the vortex. Feliciano is babbling. Nonno is babbling. One, or both, of them cry in happiness. 

The shape of it takes form over the horizon, imposing and vengeful, a natural disaster, breaths away from smashing the sandcastles below, waiting for that last little tug of gravity to set it into motion.

“Lovi,” Feli squeals delightedly, “We’ll be able to go _together_!”

Lovino fucking _loses it_.

His fists clench as the wooden floor splinters and violent tremors shake the house. Lighting fixtures shatter like starlight, spitting broken glass everywhere, the water in cups boils and froths, melting through the plastic, and Lovino wonders if it’s possible to die from feeling too much.

His voice rips out of his lungs in a half-demented wail. “I’m—not—going—with—YOU!”

Because how fucking perfect. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Now he can spend every day in public, under his brother’s shadow, having been robbed of the chance to make his name mean something on its own. Isn’t it so fucking great that he’s allowed at stupid school that only wants him when he can be dragged in on Feliciano’s coattails. 

Going to Hogwarts as an asterisk under his brother’s arrival is worse than not going at all. 

Stuck in the eye of the hurricane, Lovino is ripped unceremoniously out of his dark thoughts when his grandfather upends a pitcher of lemon water over his head. All havok in the apartment stops abruptly as he gapes in shock.

“Lovino,” Romulus says, trying for a firm tone despite the tremble in his voice. “You need to calm down.”

Shaking and dazed, dripping wet and lemon-scented, Lovino manages to say “I’m--I’m not going.”

His Nonno’s eyes narrow. “_Passerotto_, it’s not a choice. If this kind of magic is bottled up in you, it isn’t safe for you to leave it unchanneled.”

“I’m not going,” Lovino says, dazed, absent, and unresponsive as he wanders into his room, “and you can’t make me.”

***

Four days pass, with the door locked. His grandfather will open it occasionally with an ‘Alohamora’, only for Lovino to reach over from his bed and flick the lock again. If he picked the lock manually, Lovino thinks, he’d be screwed. Can’t lock a door with a key still in it. Luckily, Lovino is probably the only wizard who has put any stock into doing things with his own hands.

His grandfather leaves meals for him on the floor, but Lovino isn’t hungry, so he takes all the trappings of beef and lamb to give to Bambi--she, accomodatingly, eats them out of his hands. He’s got to figure out how to get her some exercise, he thinks to himself. Things...aren’t going as he planned. Haven’t been, since that owl came by with that goddamned letter and ruined everything.

Day six. Day seven.

On day eight, there is a knock on his bedroom door. Three sharp, polite raps in quick succession.

This isn’t his grandfather, and believe it or not, it apparently is possible for Lovino to hate someone even more than he hates Romulus Vargas. 

“Fuck off,” he snarls, pressing his face into Bambi’s flank. The same three raps. He ignores them, strokes his fingers listlessly along the cold obsidian of hooves. Every fifteen minutes or so, the knocks return. Even after four hours, they don’t seem to tire.

Grabbing his Swiss Army knife, he creeps along the floor, radiating a sort of dull hostility. After ten or so minutes, the knock sounds again, and the moment it does, Lovino throws open the door and presses the knife to the person on the other side.

It’s...a girl. Which, uh. What the buggering fuck?

The young woman across from him looks unbothered despite the blade he’s got pressed against her gut. In fact, she’s got a slight smile tweaking her mouth when she tells him, “you’ve got the bottle opener out.”

He looks down to realize that yes, in fact, he does. Nonplussed, and feeling kind of stupid, he blurts, “I’ll, uh, open your stomach up like a bottle if you try to fuck with me. It’s symbolic. Bitch,” he adds lamely.

“Noted,” the girl says, not intimidated in the slightest. “If you aren’t going to finish your beef braciole, I’d like it, please.”

Lovino turns to look at the plate on his floor, and tries to decide if he wants to go through the bother of saying, ‘actually, I was trying to pick the good bits out of that for my invisible horse.’ He isn’t feeling particularly social though, so instead he just waves the bottle opener in front of her eyes menacingly and says, “If you try anything…. Watch out.”

The girl cocks her head to the side slightly, deep green eyes crossing as she tries to follow the army knife dancing erratically in front of her. She nods once and says, “I’m going to eat it now.”

And, sitting on the floor, she does.

Lovino sinks beside her to watch her eat, but she seems to be unruffled by that, too. She has short, dirty-blonde hair that curls at the end, and a wand holstered to her side, despite wearing an aqua blue muggle dress and matching headband. On top of that dress is a red and gold bolero.

“You’re wearing some dumb Gryffindor shit,” he accuses.

“I’m _wearing_ a dress,” she replies, taking an elegant bite out of the braciole.

“The--the fucking--jacket thingy!” He flails his hand at her ensemble, never having known too much about women’s fashion. “You’re a Gryffindor and you probably were sent here to piss me off until I joined your smoldering hellschool.”

She pauses in her eating but, to her credit, doesn’t look at him. “Kind-of,” she says, and despite himself, Lovino wants to like her honesty. “They wanted to send someone from Hogwarts to talk to you, ‘cause your grandda asked them to, but I said it should be me, since I’m the head girl.”

“Why?” Lovino asks challengingly. “To get my brother’s autograph?” The girl glances at him, looks back to her food.

“Because I heard you were powerful, and I wanted to see,” she says, matter-of-factly.

Oh.

“Oh,” he says faintly.

“I also figured that we’d have more in common. I’m muggle-born, and I never really cared about going to Hogwarts, either. People in wizard families...don’t really get what it’s like to have to change your whole life plan at 11. I imagine it’s even harder for you now.”

Lovino closes his mouth, opens it, closes it. “Y-yeah,” he croaks, tears welling up in his eyes. “It’s...it’s really hard.”

“D’you want to talk about it?” And weirdly, he kind of _does_. She’s open and unassuming in a way that nobody else has been when talking with him about this shit. Not prying about his feelings, not gazing at him expectantly, but listening and responding all the same. She hasn’t, he realizes, talked about his brother even once.

He loosens his posture one vertebrae at a time, and picks an orange slice off the plate.

Even wanting to say something, he isn’t sure how to begin. He’s spent so long not talking about it that it’s hard to start, even when he wants to, and he’s afraid that saying anything at all will suddenly burst this dam and he’ll blurt every ugly thought he’s ever had. He turns the orange slice over and over in his hand. The girl still doesn’t say anything, just slows down to better savor her food.

Finally, he says, “I wanted to be a vet. Before the, uh. Magic shit.” The girl says nothing beyond a hum of acknowledgement, apparently accustomed to dealing with reticent types. He cultivates courage from the silence. “People...kind of look through me.” It’s an understatement, to the extreme. “But animals...don’t care. They like you--or don’t like you--for what you do. I’ve been studying science, and I’m not very good at it, but I’m the stubbornest arsehole anyone’s ever met, they say, and I know I can get into a good University if I just keep pushing.”

The girl looks at him, smiles. “That’s a lovely goal,” she says warmly. Not simpering, not sympathetic. Matter of fact and warm. “I think you’d be a wonderful vet.”

Tears threaten to spill down his face again, but he bites them back. “Th-thanks, uh…”

“Manon,” she provides, offering him a piece of braciole. Realizing how hungry, he actually is, he takes it. “You know, magical creature care is a thing. You can take whatever electives you want in your later years of school. You could be a magical vet--or even just a regular one. A crup and a dog aren’t _that_ different, I should think.”

“It’s nice of you to try to make me feel better about this bloody nightmare,” he sighs. “But I know it doesn’t matter. Nonno can make me do whatever he wants. At the end of the day, I’m going to Hogwarts, whether I like it or not.”

“What’s so bad about going to Hogwarts?” Manon asks, resting her chin on her hand. “Unless you’ve got a lot of friends at your old school.”

He’s got, like, one and a half. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You’ll feel better,” she coaxes. He wrinkles his nose.

“Fuck off.” 

“Okay,” she says easily. There’s silence for a while longer. The Gryffindor has finished eating his food and is licking stray remnants of sauce off her fingers. She’s very pretty, he realizes in a detached sort of way, and he’d probably be making an absolute fool of himself if she were in his room under any other circumstances. “I’m done now.”

“Great,” he grouses, pressing against Bambi while trying to pretend he isn’t. “Get the hell out of my house.”

“Do you want to go shopping together?” she asks suddenly, and Lovino is thrown.

“For--what?”

“Women’s knickers,” she says with a flat expression, beaming in mischievous delight as he chokes on his own spit and his face flashes though a spectrum of reds. “Nah, I’m just taking the piss. But if you have to go to Hogwarts anyway, then your options are to shop with your grandda or to shop with someone else. So d’you wanna shop with me?”

He could go shopping by himself, he wants to say. It would be easy enough. But, well--for whatever reason he _likes_ Manon, even though it feels like the dumbest fucking decision ever. So even though his gut tells him ‘just run before she picks Feliciano over you’, his mouth apparently hasn’t got the memo.

“Fine,” he says instead. “Let’s do it together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belgium: Manon  
After this chapter, I'll be introducing many more Hetalia characters. I'm pretty flexible with pairings so let me know what you want to see! There are three caveats:  
1\. I don't write other peoples' OCs.  
2\. There is ONE pairing I will not write because I hate it. I wonder who will figure it out first.  
3\. I won't write Teacher/Student fics, and as I've messed with the canon ages a lot, there's a possibility that two characters have been so changed age-wise as to make the ship suspect. I'm not touching that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lovino goes shopping, and barfs on a goblin.

It’s raining in London nearly all the time. 

It seems like something that wizards should be able to stop, he figures, but maybe they don’t want to waste time or energy in trying to change the weather. There are drying enchantments that they sell for minors, and charms on bracelets, and all sorts of other crap, but Lovino doesn’t usually bother with even a muggle umbrella unless it’s an absolute downpour. Rain is as rain does, and honestly, it doesn’t do much.

He finds Manon’s striped umbrella easily in the sea of monochromatic black. By then, his hair is curling in that stupid way it tends to when its wet, but apparently she doesn’t care about the rain too much, since she envelops his damp body in a hug and says “Lovino! You made it!” in a voice that is hot chocolate warm.

Lovino is flabbergasted into silence. Surely, he thinks, there must have been another time where someone besides Feliciano was happy to see him (and Feliciano doesn’t count. Feliciano would be delighted to meet Jack the goddamn Ripper. Feliciano would be chuffed to make the acquaintance of a sentient rubbish bin. Feliciano _has_ been chuffed to make the acquaintance of a sentient rubbish bin).

He can’t think of one. This person he’s known for less than forty-eight hours is also the only person who has ever greeted him like he’s a Christmas present they had been patiently expecting. It makes him feel awkward, like his bones are grinding together, like his skin is too big for his body.

“What the fuck else would I do? Not buy books?” he blusters, falling back easily on his poisoned tongue. Manon blinks slowly, contently, and combs her fingers through his bangs to neaten them. He thinks of his mother’s hands with a lump in his throat.

“Prickly, prickly,” she teases. “My big brother isn’t so different from you. Have you got your list?”

He has got his list. He’s also got Bambi next to him, not that Manon can see her. “Yeah.”

“Perfect. First stop is Gringotts.”

“Actually, I’ve gotta go somewhere else first,” he hedges, and Manon looks at him curiously but shrugs in acquiescence. 

Fifteen minutes later finds Lovino practically spitting obscenities into Sadik’s front door as Manon looks on in a sort of accepting bewilderment. Eventually, the door creaks open. Sadik is there, tall and handsome, masked, unimpressed.

“You know,” he says conversationally, “you’re really starting to piss me off.”

Manon says, politely, “Hello, Professor Adnan.”

That...is not what Lovino expected her to say but he doesn’t really care. What does it matter to him what job Sadik might have in his off-time? “I...I need a favor,” Lovino says, clicking his tongue so Bambi obediently trots up beside him. Sadik’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and he reaches out to pet her snout.

“Well, hello, sweetheart,” he croons. They’re both getting some serious side-eye from Manon, but Lovino ignores her. 

“I need you to take care of her.” A grimace pulls down his mouth, loathe to be away from his girl for even a second. “Until Hogwarts. There’s no room for her in the apartment, and ever since that stupid letter came, Nonno has been watching me like a fucking eagle.”

“You kept a Thestral in your apartment?” Sadik says disapprovingly.

Manon blinks slowly and says, “uh. Okay. Wasn’t expecting that.”

“I thought it would be easier to sneak out,” Lovino snaps defensively. “I wasn’t expecting--I didn’t--” 

_‘I didn’t think he’d give a fuck what I did. He never has before.’_

“Well, you did the right thing bringing her here,” Sadik says, gentler. He must have read something raw and miserable in the creases of Lovino’s eyes. “Sometimes you need to take the things you love to the person who can care for them, even if it’s not you. It’ll only be a couple months, you know.”

Tears bead in his eyes as presses his forehead to Bambi’s. She nudges back and he can’t help but sob in one long, low keen. “Be good,” he whispers throatily, kissing her nose. “Eat all your giblets and--and don’t g-give Sadik a hard time. And k-kill the rabbits quickly, h-head first, and don’t b-be too sh-shy with the other th-thestrals if you g-get l-l-lonely.”

Manon wraps an arm around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head. “Why don’t you give her something nice so she doesn’t miss you?” she says gently. Surprised, Lovino glances up at her and manages a watery smile.

“Y-yeah,” he mumbles, ripping a long strip of fabric off his T-shirt and carefully tying a bow around her neck. “Here, _cuore mio_. If-if you miss me.”

“She’ll miss you,” Manon pipes up. “And Professor Adnan can bring her to the stables right when school starts, and you can go see her every day.”

“Can I?’ Sadik says dryly.

“Yes,” Lovino insists, rubbing the tears from his eyes to grin cheekily.

“Brat,” Sadik grumbles, and without another word, Manon whisks him off to Gringotts.

The vault isn’t supposed to be one he can access himself, but obviously his blood has been properly put into the wards, and he nicked the key out of Nonno’s dresser before he left, in the sock drawer with the cigars Lovino isn’t supposed to know about. The Goblins are kind of fucking assholes, which is annoying because he’s supposed to be the only asshole in any room at a time. Manon pretends to be scared and Lovino pretends to believe her so he can hold her hand as they slam dizzily around dark corners and Lovino actually chunders all over their guide in his neatly pressed uniform.

Manon, without visibly reacting, hands them both baby wipes. Lovino can’t tell if he wants her to marry him or adopt him.

Eventually, though the Goblin is (pretty understandably) abrasive for the rest of the experience, they’re out blinking in the cloudlight, trying to get used to fresh air and solid ground again. 

“The bookstore? If you think you’ve got everything out,” Manon adds indelicately.

“No more breakfast to lose,” he points out with a loose-limbed shrug, and that is that.

Flourish and Blotts is the same as it usually is. He yanks the hood of his sweatshirt down over his face so nobody gets their hopes up about who he might be and sets about following behind Manon as she sifts through the first year books.

“So this is the Standard Book of Spells,” she says, handing it to him. Lovino doesn’t even bother to open it. 

“Great,” he says, unenthused. Manon pauses to flick her green eyes over to him.

“You ok?” she asks delicately. “Only you seem kind of...meh.”

“I’m so _thrilled_,” Lovino spits, sarcasm souring his bile-flavoured mouth. “Euphoric, really. I’m all hopped up on bath salts and ready to be a _wizard_.” Manon says nothing, but doesn’t look like she’s about to move, either. Just looks at the list and absently taps a finger to her lips, waiting-while-not-waiting to see if he’d like to get anything else off his chest.

Rolling his eyes, he lets his eyes flick over the textbooks. He’s actually read a lot of them before--Magical Theory in particular always fascinated him when he was younger, and his copy of Fantastic Beasts at home is so beloved that the cover fell off and had to be replaced with duct tape and flattened orange juice cartons. The ones he doesn’t know well are the spells, because when he realized he wouldn’t be able to access that part of magic, he stubbornly decided he had never liked it much, anyway. But now, he’s apparently got catching up to do.

He reaches for the book, only to start when his hand brushes against slim, pale fingers grabbing for the same copy. 

If Lovino were anyone else, he might blush, stammer an apology, make a new friend. For all he knows, this could be the meet-cute that will define the rest of his life. But because Lovino is Lovino, he says, “I’ll bite your fucking hand off if you don’t let go.”

The hand, unsurprisingly, lets go. Lovino turns to glower menacingly at him, the attempted Book Thief. He can take this kid easily. He looks like wouldn’t even reach six stone soaking wet, and he’s willow-thin with graceful pianist’s fingers and huge, thoughtful eyes.

Right now, though, he seems flustered and embarrassed, mumbling apologies. Weak. _Lovino_ kind of wants to shove his head in the sand.

“Hi,’ Manon says, because apparently nobody in his life can read the goddamn room.

Book Thief looks at Manon, and gives a funny little nod, like a bow from the shoulders up. “Ah. Janssens-san.” She shoots him a look with her eyes, the sort that says ‘I have literally no idea who you are but I don’t want to tell you that and come off like a prick. He deciphers it, says, “I’m Kiku Honda. Fourth-year Ravenclaw. As you are Head Girl this year, I thought it prudent to be aware of your name and face.”

A fourth-year student? Lovino drinks him in. If he started when he theoretically was supposed to have had, Kiku would have been a classmate of his. Maybe even a friend.

“Oh!” Manon smiles welcomingly. “I believe I remember you. Top of your class in Transfiguration, yes?”

Kiku’s head ducks in a bashful manner. “_Iyaiya_,” he mumbles, pink crawling up his cheeks. “I have been very fortunate in the explanations of Professor Bondevik. The credit is very much his.” Those dark, nearly black eyes rest on Lovino curiously. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“This is Lovino,” Manon introduces, resting a warm hand on the top of his head. “He’s buying books--”

“For my brother,” Lovino blurts. Manon’s gaze is an ice cube trailing slowly down his neck, and he resists the urge to flinch. “We’re...transferring. He’s a first year. So this--this book is for him.”

Kiku smiles faintly. “I’m picking the books up for my cousins. They’re twins, and they’re starting soon as well. Maybe they and your brother will be friends, _ne_? Or--well, Yong Soo might. His brother is..._nandeshitakke_… an acquired taste.”

"Tell me about it," Lovino snorts, remembering that morning when Feliciano had gotten so excited about seeing crocuses that he'd started hyperventilating. 

Kiku tips his head again in acknowledgement. "_Ja_, I must be off. I've many things to pick up. Thank you for not biting me." 

The perfectly placid look on the Japanese boy's face is difficult to parse. Lovino isn't entirely sure if he's being sincere or sarcastic, which leaves him a bit wrong-footed on how to reply. Eventually, he settles on, "Give it time. I still might."

His brow creasing slightly in stifled amusement, Kiku nods elegantly and sweeps off to the counter. Lovino watches him go, wistfully, until he convulses wildly. Somehow, Manon had managed to poke him hard in that one spot on his side that always made him lose control of his limbs.

"_Li mortacci tua_!" he shrieks, almost falling on the floor. 

"Wasn't expecting that."

"Don't just TOUCH people like that!" Next time, he decides, he's screaming 'assault' and seeing how someone else likes being the center of negative attention for a change. "What the fuck do you want? I was right fucking there!"

"Why'd you lie to Kiku?" she asks, soft but indelicate, cutting passionlessly to the heart of the matter. Lovino feels like a butterfly on a corkboard. A butterfly getting surgery. Shit, that metaphor makes no sense.

"_Chissenefrega_? It's none of your business." But she keeps looking at him, slight smile on rosy lips, moving nowhere, saying nothing. "What? You think I'm just gonna tell you if you keep looking at me? Well, I won't! Fuck you! Fuck off!" 

She raises one eyebrow.

"Keep fuckin raising your eyebrows! Let 'em fly off your face and go into the fucking stratosphere! I'm not saying shit to you! I don't owe you a goddamn thing!"

She raises the other eyebrow.

Lovino huffs breaths, boiling with rage, seconds away from blasting through the flimsy paper barrier of self control when abruptly his fight drains away. She's not giving him anything to go on is the problem, he thinks miserably. He can't work his way up into a real meltdown without something to smash up against, and she's neither being cloying or angry, or pitying, or demanding. She's just...waiting, and he's starting to suspect that her patience far exceeds his.

"It's..." He squirms. "Don't make me say it."

She looks him over appraisingly. "So don't say how it makes you feel. Don't focus on your feelings at all. What's the part that bothers you?"

Facts. He can do facts. "I'm a first year student."

Her eyes flicker with understanding. "And Kiku is a fourth year."

He flushes but not talking about the way he feels--just listing flavourless information--makes it bearable. "I'm almost fourteen."

"Kiku is almost fourteen," she says, and he's so relieved that someone gets it that he almost wants to cry. And then she exceeds even his wildest dreams as her mouth forms an 'o'. "Feliciano is a first year."

He throws his arms around her and buries his face in her shirt.

Her fingers comb through his hair, and she murmurs in his ear. "I'll talk to the school," she whispers. "I don't know what I can do about your classes, but I promise I'll at least dig my heels in enough that you can get sorted in private. Maybe even before the year starts, so you can wear your house colors on the train. Nobody will even look twice at you."

Holy shit, she gets it. She gets it, she gets it, and Lovino is probably seriously hurting her with the death grip he's currently got around her waist.

She lets him cling for as long as he needs, until he manages to let go. The words feel weird on his tongue--he can't remember the last time he's said them, but he can't remember the last time someone deserved them this much, either.

"Thank you so much," he rasps.

Manon beams at him, presses a fond kiss to his forehead. "Come on, _schatje_. Let's go get you a wand."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, we're probably going to have Spain, France, and Prussia make an appearance. If you have any idea for what house you think each should be in, let me know! I'm still on the fence.
> 
> Translations (I'm pretty sure nobody needs Japanese suffixes translated anymore):  
Cuore mio: My heart  
Iyaiya: Gosh, no, not at all  
Ne: You know?  
Nandeshitakke: What was that word?  
Ja: Well  
Li mortacci tua: Your dead bastard ancestors  
Chissenefraga: Who the hell cares  
Schatje: Sweetie, little treasure


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Spain, Prussia, and France. Exit Romano's composure, and then also Romano himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a slow, muse-driven writer. Sorry for delays! They kind of...happen.

“Will you sit with me? On the train?”

Lovino pretends not to hear the question as Romulus chatters away with an attendant in the station who knows him from somewhere, apparently. Despite all his standoffishness, he doesn’t dislike his brother, not really. But he’s hard to be around. 

If he’s being honest, the worst of it started when Lovino suddenly realized years ago that Feliciano didn’t actually remember their parents. He had felt Mama’s nimble fingers pinching his round cheeks, had laughed his voice to a full throaty hoarseness when Papa had pretended to eat his toes—but now he looked at their photos with the same recognition he would give to a photo of a celebrity in the Daily Prophet. Lovino had to carry the weight of his parents alone. That had settled the stake in between them, but it had been irrevocably hammered in when a second, worse realization came when he had demanded to know why Feliciano didn’t have to go to therapy.

He didn’t remember their parents, yes. But he didn’t remember _anything_.

Lovino had watched his mother’s body thrashing on the ground in the throes of torture. He woke up at night sometimes screaming, and all he could see were his father’s glassy eyes reflecting back at him. He would occasionally fall into flashbacks where he went fully primal, scratching and biting at his grandfather’s loving arms because all he could hear was that cold, smooth voice, like oil poisoning the water. 

Feliciano, the hero of the story, got all the good and none of the bad. Feliciano was praised endlessly for a sacrifice he wasn’t even aware he was making. When the curse hit his forehead, he was unchanged; Lovino was the one who felt a part of himself die that night.

The boy who lived, and the boy who broke. The boy who was, and the boy who wasn’t. 

Which, of course, leads to his current dilemma. 

His gut tells him to say no. Not just say it, actually--to snarl something barbed and profane, and maybe even shove past his brother on his way to boarding the train. However, with his grandfather right next to him, that's certainly going to go over horribly, and what he wants even less than to sit next to his stupid, spoiled baby brother is to apologise to him in public. So he mumbles a non-answer, shifts from one foot to the other, and hopes that it'll be enough to pacify Feliciano. Then, with any luck, he'll be able to lose him in the crowds on the train. 

The whistle blows its last warning, and his Nonno wraps Feliciano into a hug as he cries snottily on his shirt. Sensing an opportunity, Lovino grabs his trunk and ducks quietly into the train.

The Hogwarts Express is bigger than he'd thought, and cleaner, too. But it is, for all intents and purposes, a train, and he can't help but be slightly disappointed that it isn't doing anything magical. Still, he clutches his new robes around him with fingers that tremble just slightly, and attempts to swagger down the corridor. 

It's an entrance for sure. He's got his new Slytherin tie around his neck, and gazes tend to flit from that to his face, and then back again. This is what he's accustomed to, being the brother of the savior of the whole bloody universe, but it's the fact that the attention STAYS on him that's unsettling. He takes a deep breath and forces his shoulders back, and as he proceeds through the train, nobody makes any moves to stop him.

Finally, he's alone in a narrow corridor, and he relaxes enough to inhale a single, short breath. 

"Hey, Lovi!" 

It's Manon, waving goodbye to a few girls her age before walking up to him. Instinctively, he beams at her, before coming to his senses and wiping it away. God, though, she's the best.  
"What?" he fake-grouses. He hates the nickname coming from anyone else, but he's beginning to suspect Manon could drive a bus over him and he'd find a way to forgive her for it. 

"Nothing in particular. Just excited to see you on the train. Not a Gryffindor, eh? Disappointing, but not surprising."

An abashed sort of fondness tugs at his lips, trying to force another smile, but he just shuffles his feet instead to get the energy out. "Yeah. I, uh. Guess trying to cheat the test means that you get in Slytherin no matter what." She laughs.

"I don't think it's a bad fit for you," she says. "D'you wanna come sit with me? The prefect's car is kind of boring, but you know I'm always happy to talk with you!”

He does know. They've been sending letters back and forth all summer. He expected her to get bored of it pretty quickly, but though her letters weren’t particularly long, they came consistently. “Okay,” he says. Sitting in the prefect’s car is doubtless going to damage what little street cred he might have, but he dares anyone to say no to Manon’s warm green eyes. 

“I can introduce you to Arthur!” she chirps. “He’s the head boy, and a Slytherin, so I’m positive he can help get you sorted. I know you weren’t crazy about Hogwarts from the beginning, so I’m going to do my best to make sure this is a fun year for you.” Baffled, Lovino watches her, gesturing with her hands as she speaks. The idea of someone actively trying to make sure he enjoys himself is such a foreign and bizarre concept to him that it doesn’t really register. He doesn’t receive that sort of kindness, and to be brutally honest, he doesn’t tend to give it either.

“Here we are!” Manon interrupts herself mid-sentence to gesture to a smooth wooden door with a brass handle polished to a shine. It looks like the kind of car a prefect would want to sit in. It looks like the kind of car Lovino would instinctively avoid so as not to smash anything. But he’s not going to the prefect car, per se, he’s going to _Manon’s_ car, so he supposes he can deal with it. 

Manon opens the door and frowns as she glances in. “Arthur?” she murmurs. “That’s strange. He’s always the first one in.” Without hesitating, she takes a step into the carriage.

A can of paint upends on her head with a crash.

Later, Lovino will be embarrassed to admit that he screamed. After his casual participation in the spectator sport of watching one’s parents being tortured to death, he has kind of a thing about surprises. He doesn’t know if Manon is aware of this or just the purest soul on earth, because her immediate reaction is to ignore the paint dripping between her eyes to try to comfort him.

“Lovi--Lovi, I’m fine. See? It’s just paint. Everything is fine.”

The paint is somehow dry already and changing colors, slowly bleeding from green to yellow to red to purple. It’s not_ fine_. How the hell would it be FINE?!

“_Dios mio_! Manon, I’m so sorry!”

Lovino didn’t notice the three boys creep up behind him, so he screams then, too. One stray brain cell encourages him to keep doing it, so he can maybe bust a blood vessel in his frontal lobe and die to spare everyone the embarrassment.

The boys behind Lovi are probably a year or two older than him. Their gazes flit between him and Manon, presumably not sure which mess they should be focused on. 

“_Sheisse_,” one of the boys says finally. “Magical paint was so fuckin' expensive.”

What the fuck?! Lovino whirls on him, fists clenched, jaw so tight he feels like his bone is splintering. If there’s one thing Lovino can’t stand, it’s a bully, and he’s been one, so he knows. You don’t push someone who’s too soft-hearted to push back, and above that, this is MANON. She’s off limits. She’s barely on the same fucking plane as the limits.

And looking at the guy makes Lovino instantly want to barf.

It’s not his fault, he feels compelled to blurt, even though nobody would know what the fuck he was talking about if he did. The paint-dropper has the delicate, nearly translucent skin of a china doll, a shock of white hair that sweeps a jagged wave across his forehead, and eyes that glimmer like rubies. Lovino doesn’t have a great track record with pasty white guys with red eyes, considering the last one murdered his parents, but surely his odds are better this go-around?

Lovino eyes the other two so he can stop thinking about it.

One is brunet, with green eyes, and warm, tanned skin. He looks fucking stupid. That’s not an insult to his appearance, mind, (he might actually be the hottest person Lovino has ever seen), but to his intelligence. There’s something dopey and naive about him, like a puppy that slammed its head too many times into a wall and shits by the floral-scented candles because his dumb arse thinks he’s outside. And then once he takes a dump, he trots up to you, all proud of himself, because he doesn’t realize his fucked-up brain doesn’t know what a real flower smells like, and you have to pretend to be proud of him so the neighbors don’t call RSPCA on you for abusing your dipshit dog.

(This didn’t happen, mind. Lovino just spends a lot of time cultivating ruthless analogies to dunk on people he dislikes.)

(Lovino dislikes a lot of people, and has a lot of free time.)

On the other side is a blonde man, with bright blue eyes that are currently fixed on Lovino. He looks assessing, probably trying to contextualize the grumpy Italian, and Lovino abruptly juts his chin out in a scowl. He’s been told time and time again that he looks least like Feliciano when he’s angry.

“It’s been like...five minutes, Gilbert,” Manon says in the voice of the homeowner who for some reason had scraped the bottom of the hope barrel and believed that her dog would be able to understand the concept of ‘outside’, only for reality to barrel in again to prove her wrong. “We’re still on the _train_. You seriously couldn’t wait until the year started to pull this?” The albino--Gilbert--looks unrepentant.

“Francis is the one who enchanted the paint.”

“Arthur is usually the only one here this early,” the blonde (Francis?) says, and at least he’s giving her an apologetic (if flippant) smile. An ‘I’m sooooo sorry but I’m gorgeous so you’ve already forgiven me, right?’ smile. “It will wash, I promise. In… _euh_...about two weeks?”

Manon very slowly puts her head in her hands. Lovino feels the leash restraining his self-control snap.

“What the fuck is WRONG with you?” he snarls, drawing the attention squarely back to him. “You’re gonna bully MANON?”

“Hi!” the brunette chirrups. “Have we met?” He doesn’t quite get the question out before Lovino head-butts him in the stomach and he doubles over with a wheeze.

“MANON IS LIKE THE BEST,” he barks. “NOW SHE’S GOING TO LOOK LIKE A BIG FUCKIN GAY RAINBOW.”

The tanned boy is curled on the floor now but still manages to ask, “what’s wrong with being gay?”

“Priorities, Antonio,” Francis hisses. 

“NOTHING,” Lovino snarls, making a move as if he’s going to punt Antonio’s big, fat gorgeous head off his body, just to make him yelp in protest and roll over to the side. “BUT IT’S HER CHOICE WHEN SHE WANTS TO COME OUT, DOUCHEBAG, AND THE LESBIAN FLAG IS MOSTLY PINKS AND ORANGES AND SHIT, WHICH YOU WOULD KNOW IF YOU STOPPED WANKING FOR TWELVE FUCKING MINUTES AND LEFT YOUR BLOODY BATHROOM.”

“Lovi,” Manon murmurs, pulling Lovino close to her and stroking his hair. “Lovi, Schatze, I’m fine. I’m fine and you’re fine. See?” She shushes him gently and he’s mortified to realize his hands are trembling. With a last searing glare that could melt concrete, he buries his face in her jumper and takes huge, gulping breaths, trying to slow his pulse to manageable levels. 

After a few seconds, Manon snarks, “you guys are the worst housemates ever.”

“For what it’s worth,” Francis provides, “if Arthur was here, this would have genuinely been hilarious.”

Manon sighs gustily. Lovino makes no move to leave the comforting, rose-scented cotton, but he can imagine her reluctantly amused expression. “You’re lucky it _wasn’t_ him. He’s not nearly as forgiving.”

The tension seems to be dissipating, and the fingers in his hair slow. “Guy this is Lovino. Lovino--” Manon pauses for a split moment before she says his last name, as if to ask for permission. In answer, Lovino’s fingers dig anxiously into her jumper, and she switches tack perceptively. “Is a transferring Slytherin, so he doesn’t know much about the castle. Lovi, would you like proper introductions?”

“Okay,” he says, reluctantly, twisting his head so he can shoot an unimpressed look at the interlopers without moving from his cozy position. She doesn’t seem to mind her new limpet. 

“Francis, I’ll leave the introductions up to you.”

“My name is Francis Bonnefoy. _Enchante_,” he purrs with a wink. 

“Die in a creek,” Lovino deadpans. 

“Noted,” he says, with no apparent drop to his spirits. “Anyway. I’m a pureblood scion of the Bonnefoy potioneers, and to answer your question, yes, we do have Veela blood. I’m quite pleased to make your acquaintance.” 

Lovino kind of wants to barf. He also kind of wants to know why this sleazebag isn’t in Beauxbatons but asking that would imply interest in Francis, and he gets the feeling this creep doesn’t need any excuses to not keep his hands to himself. All he grits out instead is, “hi.”

“This is Gilbert Beilschmidt, pureblood heir to the Slytherin line, or so he claims.”

“You don’t have to say everyone is a pureblood,” Lovino snarks. “You’re in Slytherin. I get it.”

“Sorry,” Francis says with an effortless shrug of the shoulders that drips of the Mediterranean. “You can’t unlearn good manners.” That’s technically true in pureblood circles, Lovino knows, but it still feels a little weird to introduce people by listing their titles. Lovino has kind of dropped out of pureblood traditions by not being a wizard for most of his life. “He’s definitely a war profiteer though, by nature of being a Beilschmidt.”

“Fuck yeah I am,” Gilbert says, shooting finger guns like a fucking tool. 

“Oh my god,” Manon mutters under her breath.

“And lastly is Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. He--”

“I don’t care,” Lovi grouses. “These are the worst fucking introductions I’ve ever heard.” He knows about Antonio, if only because the Fernandez family and the Carriedo family were both old and wealthy, and apparently wizarding society shat themselves over the wedding. When he was a kid, he remembers looking through pictures of the lavish ceremony in one of his parents’ old albums with round-eyed awe. He never would have imagined the son of such a famous match to look like the kind of person who would believe you if you said it was raining marinara sauce. 

“Okay, okay,” France says agreeably, hands up. “So who are you?”

The Italian arches a brow as he feels Manon tighten her hold protectively. “I’m Lovino. Holy shit, did you forget that already?” 

“No, I mean who’s your _family_," he stresses in patient tones. Lovino feels a shiver trickle down his spine. 

_Gabriele and Chiara Vargas. They liked to dance the Tarantella in the kitchen when they waited for pasta to boil. They taught Lovino how to crack an egg, and how to tell if it was going to rain soon. They hung all his drawings on the fridge, even though they weren’t any good, and Lovino loves them fiercely despite the fact that they are no longer around to love him back._

“Francis!” Manon snaps. “Over the line.”

“My family is none of your business, fuckface,” he growls. 

“I was just asking,” Francis is saying defensively, hands up, and then it happens.

“I remember you! You’re the Vargas boy,” Antonio says innocently, and everyone in the compartment goes quiet.

Goddammit.

“The Vargas boy?” Francis repeats, eyes shrewd. “The one who--”

“No,” Antonio says, “not that one. The other one. The brother.”

And if that isn’t just Lovi’s whole entire fucking life.

Gritting his teeth, he grabs his wand from his side-holster and points it directly between Antonio’s eyes.

“Crucio!” he snarls.

There’s a ripple of shock as he casts, Manon even letting out a little scream. 

Nothing happens. Which is what Lovino intended. 

He’s never cast before, so obviously it isn’t going to work, and more to the point, he doesn’t _want_ it to. The thing about a Crucio (and, having watched one in action and then researched obsessively, Lovino knows his way around a Crucio) is that you have to _mean_ it, have to really want the person to _hurt_, and Lovino (while often a brat) isn’t a full-on sadist. Even if he _did_ manage to cast an Unforgivable with his unreliable magic, and cast it successfully, the worst it would do is pinch. But what it DOES do is stun everyone into slack-jawed horror long enough for him to dart up in two swift strides and punch that dumb bastard in the balls so hard his _grandchildren_ will be feeling it, if he still manages to have any.

And as he crumples to the floor, Lovino weaves through the three of them and darts out of the room and into the hall, ignoring Manon crying his name.

First impressions indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Italian:  
Vai a morire ammazzato: Get murdered to death  
Nonno: Grandfather  
Passerotto: Little sparrow  
Piccolo: Little one  
Tesoro: Treasure  
Stronzo: Asshole


End file.
